Zombie Franchises

These days it is fashionable to speak of the "undead," and coin phrases including the word "zombie" to refer to an entity existing in a state of less than complete viability.

I wondered recently if anyone had hit on the term "zombie franchise" to refer to franchises that still wander the pop cultural landscape even after they have ceased to be truly living--either fecund creatively, or worthwhile financially, but because of the unhinged addiction of Hollywood Suits to investing vast sums of money into movies no one ever asked for because they can attach a brand name to them.

When I tried Googling it I all too predictably found that all that came up were franchises about zombies. Of course, for all that it may be that the usage exists--because we certainly need it. Just consider the Terminator saga. Terminator 5 was not especially well-received, but probably made just enough money overseas to save it from being a complete disaster.* Terminator 6 did much less well, coming in right behind X-Men: Dark Phoenix on Deadline's list of the biggest box office bombs of 2019.**

Still, it seems that "more Terminator" will be coming our way in some form, the movie franchise about a robot apocalypse of the kind driving the wannabe posthumans of Silicon Valley to distraction instead a perfect example of the zombie franchise apocalypse that has overtaken contemporary pop culture.

* 2015's Terminator: Genisys (which had a $155 million production budget) made almost 80 percent of its money overseas ($351 million of its $441 million total), and over a quarter of its global total (and a quarter more than it made in the U.S.) in China alone ($113 million), in a prime example of how important China had then become to Hollywood had become on the Chinese market, the saving grace of many of its products.
** 2019's Terminator: Dark Fate both cost more ($185 million versus $155 million) and made not much more than half as much in real terms ($261 million versus the fifth film's $441 million, four years of ticket prices later), as the 2015 film.